There’s a colourful information board on the prom at Cullercoats which tells you all about the artists who formed a colony there in the 19th Century, drawn to the light, the coastline, the sea and the people.

There’s nothing, though, about the artists who still work there today.

One group is based at Cullercoats Studios and this weekend, coinciding with Whitley Bay Film Festival and its own artistic fringe, they are welcoming the public to a rare exhibition.

They put out a press release, advising: “The studio maintains a deliberate low profile policy so this is a rare opportunity to visit the space and meet some of the artists.”

Intrigued, I went along to meet them in their eyrie above the Co-op and hung about dubiously for a while outside. As I should have predicted, there was no sign.

Some local people coming out of the shop said they had never heard of the place although one young boy queried: “Is that where they do dancing?”

Then I noticed the door at the side of the building, opening on to a rising flight of stairs.

Sculptor Jill Gibson said they could dance if I really wanted them to but the others didn’t look keen.

Bill gave me a quick tour of the rooms, nice and bright with the sun pouring in.

“There’s been a group here getting on for 40 years,” he said.

“They all moved out because there was a dispute about the roof. Then I moved in with Paul.”

It was made clear to me that this is not an artists’ cooperative.

“No, I’m the boss,” said Bob. “There has to be someone who makes executive decisions. But we get along and that’s the key to it all.”

The artists come and go, sometimes like ships in the night.

“I probably see Jill three or four times a week,” said Bob.

“I work occasionally as a psychotherapist but only for a few hours a week. I spend the rest of the time in the studio although I have been doing quite a lot of travelling.”

Partly this is explained by the teaching he has been doing in the art department at the University of Macedonia in the Greek port city of Thessaloniki.

But also because he is represented in an exhibition of British art in Venice, running alongside the prestigious Venice Biennale.

“I was there for five days for the opening,” he said.

Work in progress by Paul Richardson-Chute (Image: ncjMedia)

But all these artists have made an impact overseas even if the people shopping beneath their feet might never have heard of them.

Jill exhibited in Texas earlier this year and in Australia in 2015 while Keith’s work has been part of a touring show in China and is also in an exhibition called Drawing into Landscape: Contemporary British Painting in The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London.

Paul, who had to slip away, has been working in Germany, evidenced by pieces on his easels clearly inspired by the map of the country. According to his website he is primarily a sculptor but one who also paints and documents his work.

Keith is from Liverpool, where he attained his MA in fine art, but he lived in Leeds before moving to the North East five years ago.

He previously had a studio in the centre of Newcastle . “But it was difficult because I live in Cambois (the village on the coast, near Blyth). This is easier to get to.

“I was attracted to the space here but also to the other artists who seemed to have a similar mentality.”

In his Twitter profile, Keith states: “Painter who paints. I spend my days painting. I do other things, but they don’t matter.”

This is accurate, it turns out. In the studio he said: “I just want to go on making the work and showing the work. You don’t get that many opportunities to show work in Newcastle.”

Keith Murdoch with two of his small paintings inspired by the coast (Image: ncjMedia)

He hadn’t seen the board on the Cullercoats prom but what drew the 19th Century artists to this place seems to have worked its magic on him too.

Showing me some of his little paintings (he does big ones too), he said: “They’re based on landscapes and the North East coast specifically. I make little studies in situ and they’re reactions to the weather conditions, the sea and what goes on.

“I work on this scale because it means I can react quite quickly to any small change.

“I look for areas that interest me. If you’re not interested in something, you can’t make anything interesting of it. After five years here I’m still buzzing because it changes all the time.”

Jill, who is originally from Sheffield, studied at Glasgow School of Art and then did an MA at the University of Sunderland.

She described herself as “a sculptor, primarily” but not one using marble or bronze or even clay.

“I have developed a casting technique using fabrics and expanding foam,” she said.

“I was using the same technique with plastic and concrete but it became too heavy. Then I had a fortuitous find on a building site and have been using recycled and discarded materials ever since.

“Lycra is very flexible. I pump in foam and then it hardens. Sometimes I don’t like the shape that emerges but I can change it because I also like to carve.”

Leda, a sculpture by Jill Gibson made from expanding foam, steel and paint (Image: ncjMedia)

Jill’s sculptures look like living things, languid and rather comical.

She said she regarded her form of sculpture as “quite a feminine activity”, not only because of the materials but because of the way the resulting pieces related to each other.

She liked trying to arrange them in social groupings.

And what of the boss?

Bob explained his roundabout way into professional art via a degree in English Literature from Newcastle University, an HND in counselling and psychotherapy and then finally an MA in fine art at Sunderland in 2012.

Art being “the thing I enjoyed doing more than anything else”, he finally took the plunge to study it at the age of 59.

“I’ve been painting for the last eight years,” he said.

It’s his collages you’ll see in the exhibition.

Artist Bob Lawson with one of his collages (Image: ncjMedia)

Bob said that two years ago he was exhibiting in Venice in an exhibition called Fall of the Rebel Angels and his eye was drawn to the many billboards in the city, all covered with layer upon layer of colourful and ragged posters.

“They became, for me, pieces of art in themselves and I saw them as having an historical context.

“I collected some of them and then made some collages. When I was in Thessaloniki I did the same there. The posters there were more political but I didn’t understand the language.”

The work he has been doing recently reflects his interest in this colourful urban ephemera.

Cullercoats Studios, above the Co-op at 45 John Street, Cullercoats, NE30 4PJ, will be open on Saturday (August 19) from 6pm until 9pm and again on Sunday from 2pm to 8pm.

Find out more about the group online at cullercoatsstudios.yolasite.com